


Bespoke

by pinebluffvariant



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Post-I Want to Believe, The X-Files Revival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-07
Updated: 2015-09-07
Packaged: 2018-04-19 15:00:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4750625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinebluffvariant/pseuds/pinebluffvariant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everybody reaches their breaking point.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bespoke

Everybody reaches their breaking point. Dana has a higher tolerance for pain than most people she knows. So it’s odd that what finally undoes her resolve, what breaks the dam, is his wardrobe and grooming routine.

***

In February 2008 she’d seen Mulder’s face without a beard for the first time in many months. In the bathroom, before dressing, she quietly sobbed into a towel. She had missed his face. She told him this and fucked him roughly on the rug, praying that this wasn’t their latest suicide mission. She had nearly been wrong.

But promises of shutting out the darkness only go so far. For Mulder, a very determined person when he wanted to be, it lasted four and a half years. Four and a half years of a quiet, buzzing sensuality spread thick in their bed, of coffee and the paper. Had they gotten out of the car?

But in the months before the date, the facial hair had gotten grungier again, his skin quickly regaining its pallor from too many sleepless nights. He tore the sleeves off his oldest flannel shirt and paraded around like a manly-man with dirty knees. She saw right through him. _Doing fucking yard work doesn’t mean you’re okay._ Slowly, her thoughts went from _I hate that this is happening to us_ to _I hate you for doing this to us._

One night in November the knot in her throat melted and all the bile came tumbling out. “Take a fucking shower before you come to bed,” she spat coolly over the rim of her reading glasses. The only ‘fucks’ that ever - ever - came out of her mouth in his presence were growled into his ear as she worked his cock, just this side of pain.

He backed into the bathroom, wide-eyed and frightened, and if she should have felt remorse she couldn’t tell. It felt good to be angry.

***

When nothing happened, he closed the office door behind him. Inside, she hissed You fucking coward, but willed herself to knock, enter, kiss the top of his head, and say “I’ll see you soon”. She left quietly. She spent the drive up to her mother’s place screaming at the top of her lungs. She pulled over at a gas station near the Bay Bridge and wailed against the steering wheel for half an hour.

***

Dana moves to the ritziest part of Northwest DC for two reasons: Because she can afford it (private practice pays well) and because she can’t stand the sight of flannel shirts anymore. She lets Mulder leave messages on her machine. He’s growing tomatoes this summer. He’s having an aphid problem. She waits to call back for months, until his voice is breaking on her voice mail, his anger bubbling over, pouring out. _Is this what it’s gonna be, Scully? Fuck you._ BEEP. New message. _If you need me, I’ll be here, you know I’m not going anywhere. But fuck you, fuck you, Scully._

She waits until she is legitimately not busy, then calls back. If she’s honest with herself, she wants him around, and hopes she can convey that without drowning again. Not likely. But she’ll start with sex and see if it helps.

“Hi, Mulder.”

“It’s you.”

_Yeah. It’s me._

They make plans for him to come up and see her new place.

***

Every other month or so, he shows up, passenger seat brimming with take-out bags from her favorite barbecue joint in Farmville. He’s always showered, always shaved, always wearing her favorite Hanes t-shirts, new enough that the neckline hasn’t stretched out yet. Her teeth and nails ruin a few of these shirts.

She pilfers a couple of t-shirts, touches herself surrounded by his scent when he’s gone. Slides the soft cotton over her nipples with practiced hands, imagines calluses and aching love. Carries on imaginary conversations with her witty partner in expensive slacks and a precision haircut, tries to forget the starved eyes of the man who keeps showing up at her door.

She hides one flannel shirt from him when he’s in the shower. Tosses it in the garbage, lets it disappear with greasy cornbread paper and condoms. They’re not exclusive anymore.

***

They’re on the phone regularly. When he thinks she’s asleep on the other end of the line, he tells her he loves her. When she thinks he’s distracted by his computer, and he always is, she breathes that she loves him.

***

It breaks Dana’s heart when she drives up to Mulder’s front porch, a day of frantic phone calls and voicemail messages and hours and hours of driving behind her.

She doesn’t want to ruin her heels so she slips them off and beats a path to his door barefoot.

He’s unshaven, hair wild. He’s lost weight and his cheap jeans sag around his hips.

She wills herself to not look away even as she’s yelling at him, euphemistic bullshit about being his friend and caring about him.

When he briefly goes back inside to put on a shirt, she dares herself to keep her eyes open. She dares herself to say it, just not to him, not yet.

_I’m not fucking giving up on us._


End file.
